NBCC Award Winners Announced

The National Book Critics Circle Awards have been announced, and they include, in my opinion, some minor upsets. The fiction winner, as I guessed it would be, is The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. The winner in criticism - and another pick of mine - is Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise. Other winners include Elegy, by Mary Jo Bang for Poetry, Tim Jeal's Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer, for Biography (a minor upset), Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington for General Non-fiction (another upset), and Edwidge Danticat for Brother, I'm Dying, in Autobiography.

So I nailed fiction and criticism, while completely missing the other categories. I'll take that. It's a great selection of books, and I applaud the NBCC for again choosing more interesting titles than many other awards. And of course, you can get your copy of the NBCC Award winners at Vroman's or online at www.vromansbookstore.com.